Plank road workers: walking on cliff face

The plank road is a great invention in the ancient traffic history. In order to pass through the mountains and canyons, people cut some prismatic cavities on the cliff, plugged stone piles or wooden stakes in the hole and then paved boards or slates on them.

With the development of society, plank roads have become one of the attractions at many scenic spots. When tourists walk on the plank road along the face of a cliff to experience the thrill, they don't know how hard it is to build these plank roads.

Now let's get close to the workers who are building the planks at Shiniuzhai scenic spot, Pingjiang county, central China's Hunan province.

This is a construction team consisting of 21 very experienced workers from Hunan and Sichuan. Now they are building a plank road with an average altitude of about 400 meters and a total length of nearly one kilometer at the Shiniuzhai scenic spot.

They work from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a daily wage from 300 to 400 yuan. On the rainy days, they have to stop and wait for the weather to get better.

Construction of a plank road involves 13 steps. Even on fine days, workers can build only 20 meters a day. During the process, they need to consider the planning of the scenic spot and find a reasonable cliff line based on the landform.

At the construction site, Zhang Jingfa was hanging on the cliff like a "Spider Man". He first hit a shallow hole with a pneumatic drill and then drilled into the rock with a steel chisel to hit a 1.2-meter-deep hole. When a gust of wind blew, his body swung violently. "I have got used to it. With the safety measures, it is not terrible. I have two kids at school. Building planks gives me good income. I'm the only breadwinner in my family,” said Zhang.

These workers frequently used the words "getting used to" when the reporters talked with them. They have got used to work on high cliff and the boring and lonely life in the mountains, because giving their families a better life is the driving force.